Afraid of not being able to sleep? Anyone else get this?

It sounds kind of ridiculous, I know, but that's what I figure I am. Most of the time I can sleep fine, but even then I have to force down thoughts like "What if I can't sleep tonight?" or "What if I can never fall asleep again?" or playback of conversations with people about their sleep troubles- all of which make me end up getting up inevitably after some weird 5 minute long not-quite-sleep kind of things and doing something else.

It hasn't happened in awhile, but it's happening tonight as it's 12:02 AM here and I went to bed at 6:45 PM and had nothing but weird half awake/half asleep things for a few minutes at a time that only really made me feel more afraid of not being able to fall asleep tonight, even though I slept fine last night, the night before, and all of last week. I kind of feel like I'm whining because a lot of people have worse sleep problems than I do... But I don't know, it's not making life easier for me having to quash that fear on a nightly basis (even if I win a good number of times), so I figure it's better to at least get it out there.

So I've decided that if I'm still up in around 2 hours I'm just going to stay up, whether or not that's a good idea will be determined after school tomorrow... Dunno why but it makes me relaxed thinking that I won't have to deal with trying to get to sleep after that... Why would going to sleep cause someone so much anxiety?

I think everyone has trouble sleeping at some time. Now that I'm getting older (I just turned 60) I have lots more trouble sleeping than I did twenty or thirty years ago. I woke last night to go to the bathroom and was awake an hour or more. I usually just keep laying there and trying to sleep and eventually fall asleep again. I am retired so don't have to get up at any particular time and if I get up and am sleepy again after a bit I can go back to bed, etc. Sometimes I get up, go downstairs and get something easy to eat (yogurt, piece of fruit, toast, etc.) and if it's after five or six o'clock in the morning, sometimes I'll try to get up for good, will make a pot of coffee and see how it goes.

I read before bed and have whatever I'm reading to think about as I try to fall asleep initially. When I wake in the night, I often have been dreaming and have a piece of a dream to wonder about or some activity I'm looking forward to (or dreading :-) the next day or in the week(s) ahead. Maybe make a list of things you'd like to think about instead of how well you are sleeping and grab one a night as you go to bed?

I have this constant fear and it doesn't help you sleep. I take ambien and several other things to make a person sleepy and hope for the best. I can sleep during the day no problem, but night's it's sometimes a struggle and I have a few firsts every other week and morning staff meetings, those are the worst times for me.